Afterlife Antechamber: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

One way of handling it is to divide the afterlife into sections: this here's the bit you're in immediately after you die, which is somewhat familiar, and over there is the afterlife proper, which we're not going to talk about. The story only concerns itself with the near part of the afterlife; when characters move on to the afterlife proper (often by [[Go Into the Light|Going Into The Light]]), they exit the story.

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', everyone in Konoha ends up there because of Pain's onslaught.We actually see Kakashi there, and his dad's there, too, due to his regrets. Pain's revival ability is able to bring back everyone in this antechamber, but he can't revive Jiraiya because he already passed through.

* The Afterlife in ''[[Angel Beats!]]'' is in fact an antechamber created for the souls of children who died feeling unfulfilled so that they can leave behind their regrets and fears and move on. People who do so disappear, and it's never made quite clear where they go, but it wouldn't be at all unreasonable to assume that they are going to the "true" afterlife, whatever that may be.

 

* In some [[DC Comics]], this is referred to as 'the Realm of the Just Dead'. [[Deadman (Comic Book)|Deadman]] hangs out there a lot.

 

 

== Film ==

== Literature ==

* In the [[Discworld]] series, people who die generally (and particularly if their death is being [[Played for Drama]]) find themselves on an empty plain, with the [[Grim Reaper]] standing by to explain that if they keep walking thataway they'll get to the afterlife proper. What's at the far end of the plain has never been depicted, and the [[Grim Reaper]] refuses to give any hints to people who ask, telling them that the only way to find out is to go and see for oneself.

* In the [[Old Kingdom]] series, death is like a river running through a series of caves, the last of which opens out under what looks like, but isn't, a sky full of stars. That's as far as any character goes; anybody who goes on from there never comes back. Undead raised by necromancers are always souls from within the caves, either because they died recently and hadn't finished the journey or because they deliberately lingered in one of the caves in hope of finding a way back to the land of the living.

* In ''Remember Me'' by [[Christopher Pike]], the newly-dead hang around invisibly in the land of the living until they're ready to move on. The narrator of the book is dictating her story to a living person just before she moves on herself, so she has not yet learned, and thus can't reveal, what happens next.

* In, ''The Night Angel Trilogy'' after Kylar dies for the first time (and every other time) he wakes up in an antechamber, with only The Wolf for company.

* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', when Rachel dies, she ends up there, and talks to the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Ellimist]] about the events of her life. When she asks what happens next, she is cut off, and the perspective switches to someone else.

* In ''[[Ghost Story]]'', Harry Dresden has just saved the day as a ghost and gets to see his friends before he goes on. Somewhat averted, in that we see what happens after he moves on as well: {{spoiler|he gets resurrected by his very ticked-off boss, who isn't going to let a little thing like a messy assassination keep her from getting her money's worth}}.

 

* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]''

** "The Hunt". A man dies and ends up on the Eternity Road. He's told about the two possible destinations, Heaven and Hell, but we never actually see them.

** "The Passersby". A long column of dead soldiers walk past a mansion on the way to their final destination.

* ''[[The Crow]]: Stairway to Heaven'' had one in the form of a bridge where Shelly waited for Eric. When you crossed it you moved on to the afterlife.

* In the final season of ''[[Lost]]'', the ending revealed that the flash-sideways alternate universe was actually this.

* ''[[CSI: NY]]'' Mac was in one in 'Near Death' that looked a lot like the lab.

* ''[[Due South]]'' called this the Borderlands. It was cold and snowy and a lot like the Canadian tundra in winter. Fraser went there during the time he took a substance that put him into a hibernation type state in 'Dead Men Don't Throw Rice'.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* The Underworld in both old and new ''[[World of Darkness]]'' is like this. There's an unknowable afterlife that souls (human ones, anyway) are supposed to go to, but ghosts can loiter around the place indefinitely, and [[Wraith: The Oblivion|Wraiths]] can scheme against one another to get a place in the hierarchy of the dead. In the old version, it's a place of infinite horrors, in the new, [[Lighter and Softer|some part of it are kind of cozy.]]

 

== Theatre ==

* In ''[[Carousel]]'', after Billy dies, he goes to what is explained to be "the back yard of heaven," where stars are hung on a celestial clothesline. He is not permitted to enter there even through the back gate, but he is given the chance to return to earth for one day.

 

== Video Games ==

* The setting of ''[[Grim Fandango]]'' is the Land of the Dead, which is vast but still only the lead-up to the real afterlife. What lies beyond the entrance into the real afterlife is unknown and unknowable, and nobody who goes through ever comes back; the game ends when the protagonist goes through. The Land of the Dead contains an entire city of people putting off the final step, either because they were evil in life and have reason to suspect the afterlife is going to be unpleasant, or because they've got some tie back to life (like family they want to keep an eye on), or just because they find the irrevocable step into the unknown inherently off-putting.

 

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'', the dead Eugene Greenhilt is pissed because the Blood Oath he swore leaves him stuck waiting in the antechamber. What we see of the other side applies to some extent as well: the Lawful Good afterlife takes the form of a mountain, arranged by altitude in layers of increasingly abstract pleasures. Souls are expected to go to the level they wish, then climb higher as they get bored and seek greater enlightenment. The lower levels are relatively mundane, and are all we get to see.

* ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'' has purgatory, which is a restaurant where everyone eats all their sins. There is one waiter. Service is terrible.

* In ''[[The Dragon Doctors]]'', Kili the shaman describes the afterlife as being a place that cannot be accurately described whatsoever by the living, since it is not a paradise for the living, but a paradise for the soul. We see the [[Spirit World]] many times but never someone's final resting place.

* Near the end of ''[[Walkyverse|It's Walky]]!'', characters killed by the Martians reunite, along with Ruth and Dina, in a bizarre void that Ruth insists is Purgatory, and more rational characters a shared sink of severed consciousness before it's claimed by entropy. The technology exists to retrieve the minds of people in this state, but they remember none of it.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Metaphysical Place]]

[[Category:Afterlife Tropes]]